Codes and conventions of a Thriller film director

Martin Scorsese

Martin Charles Scorsese is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, actor and film historian. Besides his
work as a filmmaker, for the past 3 decades he has been a vocal supporter of film presentation.
Along with other filmmakers, he founded a non-profit organisation called The Film Foundation. They
regularly partner with American film archives and help towards the restoration of lost or endangered
films.
Due to him being an asthmatic, this meant that whilst other children his age were outside doing
activities, he was unable to do so. Therefore, his father used to take him to the cinemas on a regular
basis, eventually Scorsese had developed a passion for cinema.
One of the main themes that dominant this films is guilt, along with other themes that include
modern crime and gang conflict.
Martin frequently sets his films in New York City, many ideologies and themes used within his work
often associated themselves with New York. This may be due to the fact that he practically spent
most of his childhood there, before he started school he was living in Manhattan and both of his
parents, Charles Scorsese and Catherine Scorsese, were blue-collar workers in New York's Garment
District. Although after that, him and his family moved and from then onwards he was raised in a
small neighbourhood of Little Italy, a place which inspired many of his films.
In some circumstances he often highlights characters in a scene using an iris, this was a tribute
camera shot technique as it was a well-known transition used in 1920s cinema. He may have used
this shot type to emphasis-e the importance of the character or give the audience a better guideline
of what they're actually supposed to be looking at.
He's known for his frequent use of slow motion, examples of these films may be 'Who's That
Knocking On My Door (1967)', 'Raging Bull (1980)' or 'The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)'. He's also
known for freeze frames, such as the opening sequence of 'The King of Comedy (1963'.
He often contributes his voice towards his films too, however without showing his face. An example
of this may have been when he played the voice of the unseen ambulance dispatcher in 'Bringing
Out The Dead'.
Martin Scorsese uses extracts belonging to the middle of his films or even towards the end, and
inserts them to the beginning sequence of the film. This technique may be used by Martin, to ensure
that the audience know what they're expecting to see soon, rather than having a long, boring start it

ensures that they are anxious and motivated to continue watching and see what happens, this may
have been used to give the audience a narrative guideline.
Like most thriller films, he also explores the ideology of women being seen as the victim by the
protagonist. His blonde, leading ladies are seen as 'angelic' through the eyes of the protagonist, this
is emphasised because in several films they are seen to be wearing white. For example Sharon
Stone's white mini-dress in 'Casino' or Cybil Shepherd in 'Taxi Driver'.
'Gimme Shelter' by The Rolling Stones is a soundtrack that appears to be in many of his movies, such
as 'Goodfellas', 'The Departed' and 'Casino'. In my opinion, the consistent use of the soundtrack in
many of his films may have been a way in which he was attempting to get a message across to his
audience and ensure it stays with them by frequently playing the song back to them. The lyrics of the
song connote the opposition against strong violence/explicit imagery, this may have suggested that
he had strong beliefs about anti-war.
Extreme close-ups
In Martin Scorsese's 'Gangs of New York', we are presented with an extreme close-up of Daniel DayLewis's left eye, where overall it's made of glass, whereas the pupil is an image of an eagle. This is
because Daniel Day-Lewis's character in the film, Bill the Butcher, considers himself a patriot and a
native to America.
'KING OF THE TRACKING SHOT'
"A notoriously difficult shot to get perfect" Martin Scorsese has been dubbed the 'King Of the
Tracking Shot' by many people after his most famous tracking shot used in Goodfellas which lasted
approximately 2 minutes and 25 seconds long. It consisted of Henry Hill and his future wife Karen
being followed from the basement of the Copacabana night-club, through a catering kitchen and up
to a newly prepared dining table on the restaurant floor.
Taxi Driver
This was one of the most successful films that Martin Scorsese had directed. Initially, Brian De
Palma, a close friend of Martins' had been asked to direct the film, but after the producers had
watched Martin Scorsese's 'Mean Streets' they agreed that he can take on the directing role instead,
only if he could also get Robert De Niro on board too. The film was based upon Scorsese's dark
nightmare of an isolated man, slowing getting driven to insanity. Although it was already
controversial upon it's release, the film made a headline again 5 years later after John Hinckley
Junior attempted to assassinate the president at the time, Ronald Reagan. Subsequently, he decided
to shift the blame from himself and claim that he was re-enacting the character role of Travis Bickle
in the film Taxi Driver (where he makes an assassination attempt on a senator).
Collaborations with Robert De Niro
Ever since the 1970s, Martin Scorsese has had passions that he wanted to pursue these both
included 'The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)' and 'Gangs of New York (2002)'. Whilst he was
considering producing them, he wanted Robert De Niro to play the lead roles in both the films. De
Niro refused to take the role of Jesus Christ in Temptation and was willing to play the role of Bill
Cuttings in Gangs. Although once the production stage of Gangs had arrived, Martin decided that De
Niro was no longer the right person to take on that role as he was too old. Overall, he collaborated
with Robert in 8 films, examples of these are demonstrated in 'Cape Fear' and 'Taxi Driver'. Scorsese

states that his creative collaboration with De Niro is unlike any other film producers with their cast
crew, according to him they can understand each other with no verbal communication involved.
Even when Robert De Niro has no direct involvement in the films, Scorsese ensures that he shows
almost every script that he writes or even considers directing to De Niro to get his thoughts and
opinions on it.
Despite 'The Aviator (2004)' being his first ever movie to gross over $100 million in the US alone, of
his 47 year career, up-to-date his film 'The Wolf of Wall Street' is currently the highest-grossing
movie he had ever directed, with a worldwide gross of $389,600,694.